


Take a Bullet

by Masu_Trout



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Injury Recovery, Loyalty, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:26:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25771333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: She wanted Andy to trust her. She wanted Andy to see her the way she saw Andy: brilliant, composed, powerful.Nile wants to protect Andy, and Andy wants to protect Nile, and somewhere in the middle of that they end up looking after each other.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Nile Freeman
Comments: 13
Kudos: 195
Collections: Battleship 2020, Battleship 2020 - Yellow Team





	Take a Bullet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flowersforgraves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowersforgraves/gifts).



Andy didn't like it when anyone got too protective of her, and _anyone_ normally ended up meaning _Nile_ ; Joe and Nicky were still too used to her invulnerability, still instinctively shifted to let her take the lead when they were walking into the unknown. But Nile had known Andy as an immortal for a handful of days and a mortal for two years now. She stepped in front of the bullets, she walked ahead to scout out the mines, and if Andy had a problem with that she could damn well stab her.

(Hell, coming from this group, even that wouldn't make much of a deterrent. A knife in the ribs was like a punch on the shoulder when you couldn't die.)

So Nile played guardian, and playing guardian sometimes meant taking hits, but somehow she hadn't quite expected to take _this_ hit.

"Damn it," she hissed out between clenched teeth, breathing through the pain as if that would make it go away. Nothing but time would do that, and time—time was already on her side. Nile could feel the shredded mess of her intestines slowly beginning to knit themselves together.

She could've seen it, too, if she just looked down again. Her insides weren't exactly inside her anymore.

God, that hurt. Fuck London, and fuck the Tube with all its disused tunnels, and fuck people who tossed _grenades_ in enclosed spaces. Her stomach looked like hamburger meat. Not good hamburger, either; right now, her body was doing an incredibly accurate impression of the fatty, oddly lumpy kind of off-brand meat her mom used to buy back when Nile was young and things were tight and they needed to make twenty dollars stretch the rest of the week.

 _Wow_ , Nile thought blearily. She really wasn't making sense anymore. The world kept swimming around her. She let her head fall back, just for a moment, to rest against the grimy concrete, and then there was nothing.

* * *

When Nile woke again, crawling her way back from a death that felt like long-overdue nap, it was to a pair of hands on her guts and a voice in her ear.

"Nile. _Nile_ —"

Nile jerked at the sudden stab of pain. "'M alive," she muttered. "Just—healing—"

Andy's face swam into view above her, pale and grim. Her forehead was beaded with sweat, her lip caught between her teeth. She looked...

Nile's blood went cold. "Andy, are you hurt?" 

She'd pushed her down behind the wall before the blast went off. She was _sure_ she had.

But if she hadn't, if Andy had taken any part of that blast...

"I'm fine," Andy said brusquely, still prodding at the tender mess of Nile's guts. "And you, you're—"

"Healing," Nile groaned. It still hurt to talk. "Slowly. Got me pretty good."

At that, Andy finally let herself relax. She leaned back against the concrete nearest Nile, color flooding back into her face as she said, "Good. Good." And then, more quietly, "You should be more careful."

"I am being careful. I got them both, didn't I?"

"Not that." Andy didn't scowl, exactly. Her expression just went grimmer and stonier, like she was taking inspiration from statues carved into buildings somewhere far above their heads. 

Nile raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? You want to tell me what, then?"

"If you're going to get blown up, try to stay conscious while you're healing. I don't want to give first aid while you're in pieces."

Nile had a retort ready for that. It was going to be something about how terrible Andy's first aid skills were, and it was going to be entirely deserved because even after years of needing to actually care for her wounds Andy barely knew how to slap on a band-aid. Before the words could make it out, though, Nile stopped. 

She could see the tension in Andy's form, the way she curled up around her weapon like she was expecting a fight at any moment. The nervousness in her eyes, hidden too well for anyone not one of hers to see. The way she kept glancing at Nile's stomach, over and over, as if she was curious to see how her body put itself back together. As if she hadn't seen the process firsthand thousands of times.

"...Andy," Nile said. "I'm fine. I'm healing. I'm still with you."

Andy grimaced. She stood, slung her labrys over her shoulder, and—ignoring Nile's weak, croaking protests—vanished into the dark of the long-abandoned Tube line.

 _Christ_ , thought Nile. If she lived another seven thousand years herself, there wasn't a doubt in her mind whether she'd ever meet anyone else half as bullheaded as Andy. No one could match that.

* * *

It was another ten minutes before Nile's body finally got itself back together. Once Nile could stand, she flicked on her flashlight, knotted the torn ends of her shirt so it was covering as much as possible, and followed Andy's trail into the dark.

She was covered in blood still, her own and other people's. Not much she could do about that right now. 

Nile stepped carefully, keeping an eye out for booby traps and bodies both. The dim light over their makeshift little base, a wavering off-yellow fluorescent lamp installed there by a maintenance crew who'd come by this place weeks or months before, was choked out by the gloom after only a few dozen steps. Silence all around, rock above and below, the air cold and musty and still—Nile didn't want to be here any longer than she had to be. An immortal could trapped here a long, long time if something went wrong this far underground.

And Andy had walked away into this darkness without looking back, labrys in hand, without so much as a word about where exactly she was going or what she intended to do when she got there... ugh, Nile had better find her soon. This hadn't been the plan.

The tunnel stretched on and on, pitch black anywhere Nile's flashlight didn't touch. Nile was half-ready to start yelling Andy's name, no matter who else it might bring running, by the time she caught the tell-tale gleam of light against a labrys edge. It was propped up against a tunnel wall, with a familiar figure standing beside it.

"Andy," Nile snapped, her voice a furious whisper. 

The tunnels picked it up and amplified it, _Andy-y-y-y_ echoing around them.

Andy turned to face her. She was still wearing that same stony scowl. Maybe Joe, or Nicky, or Booker—or Quynh, five hundred years ago—would've known what to say to talk her down. To get her to start acting _reasonable_ again. 

Nile didn't, and she didn't care. Her fear had turned to fury the moment she saw Andy alive. She closed the distance between them with two long strides, got close up next to Andy's face so she could snarl, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Talking a walk."

"In the dark. Alone. When we've got people with grenades and machine guns hunting for us." 

Andy shrugged. The smile she gave Nile then had to have been calculated to piss her off. No way she was being this obnoxious by accident.

Nile ran her hand down her face, furious. "You ever think about what I'm going to do if you get hurt down here? Huh?"

That, finally, got Andy's attention. "Nothing's going to happen to me."

"Says who? _You_? Because I'm pretty sure the guys with the guns have a different opinion!"

A muscle in Andy's jaw jumped. Nile had just a moment to watch it—a split second of satisfaction, knowing she was getting under Andy's skin—and then Andy was grabbing two fistfuls of her bloodstained shirt, pulling Nile's face in so close that their foreheads knocked together.

It was almost like Afghanistan again. God, maybe it meant she really was crazy, but Nile wanted it to be like Afghanistan again, that first day and their argument on the plane; Andy was easiest to understand when she was fighting. It was the only time she let her body language open up.

And Nile wanted to understand her. It was a fool's errand, through and through, but no matter how much she learned about Andy she always came away wanting more.

Nile pressed her head to Andy's, refusing to give ground. This close she could feel Andy's warm breath across her cheek, feel the way her pulse beat, rapid-fire, where her fingers curled against the bare skin at Nile's stomach. They stayed like that for a breath, and then another. Tension like a live wire crawled down Nile's spine. Andy could slide into motion at any moment, and she was never predictable when she moved.

Finally, though, Andy's clenched fists relaxed. She sighed and let go of Nile, stepped back just far enough they weren't breathing each others' air. 

"Don't worry about it," she said.

"Don't worry? Are you kidding me? Do you think I ever stop?"

God, how could one woman be this frustrating? Seven thousand years of practice, maybe, seven thousand years spent learning how to poke and prod at any sore spot a person might have.

Didn't matter the reason. Didn't stop Nile wishing, desperately, for Andy's power to return to her for just a fraction of a second so she could throw a punch without guilt. No person should be allowed to be so fascinating and so infuriating all at once.

Andy scowled. "I've always taken care of myself."

"Yeah, sorry, like hell you have. You let your healing take care of you for the past few millennia, and now that you need to let us help you with anything you're furious about it."

 _Let me help you_ , she didn't say, knowing it would make her sound desperate and desperate to be taken seriously. It didn't matter that Andy only seemed to half trust her—refusing to let her take hits that she would've allowed Joe or Nicky to have stepped in front of, worrying over her in a way that she worried over no one else. It made sense: she was the youngest, the least experienced, and with what had happened with Booker... well, trust was earned, in the end, and it was earned slowly coming from a woman used to thinking in centuries.

It didn't matter, but it made her furious. She wanted Andy to trust her. She wanted Andy to see her the way she saw Andy: brilliant, composed, powerful. And she didn't have centuries to earn that trust—she had sixty years, maybe, if she did her job perfectly. If she never let Andy down.

"Isn't that right?" Nile continued, pressing ground even as Andy tried to turn away. "You have to rely on a rookie now, and I _know_ that must be frustrating for you, I get it, but I am doing _everything_ I possibly can—"

"Fuck, Nile," Andy interrupted, sounding disgusted—with Nile or herself or the world in general, Nile couldn't tell. "You don't get it at all, do you?" 

And before Nile could say anything to that, Andy was stepping into her space again. A hand on her hip this time instead of grabbing hold of her shirt, another reaching up to cup her jaw, and Nile had just enough time to take stock of the situation, how Andy's battle-calloused fingers felt against hers, before Andy leaned in and kissed her.

Andy kissed like she fought. Her lips smashed against Nile's like she might decide to bite her at any moment, her hands dug into Nile's skin like she was afraid to let go. For a second it seemed like she might pull away; Nile grabbed her shoulder and clung to her, pulled her back into the kiss and made it something that _actually_ felt like it might be kiss instead of a face-mashing competition. Gentler, more careful, a little bit of tongue.

When they finally broke apart, it was to both of them gasping for air. Andy was staring at Nile like she wasn't sure exactly what had just happened, like she hadn't been the one to kiss her in the first place. And Nile... well, Nile had a feeling she probably didn't look any more put-together than Andy did. Hell, she'd almost dropped her flashlight. Not her fault, she thought; she hadn't exactly been expecting that. 

Not that she was complaining. To say the least.

"Well," Nile said, once it was clear Andy wasn't about to jump in. "Couldn't you have done that without stomping off first?"

That got her a proper, Andromache of _Fucking_ Scythia style glare. Nile grinned back at her, unrepentant.

Andy shook her head. "Smartass."

"Yeah, well, I think it's deserved, given all this. You want to explain to me exactly what that was about?"

"Can't say I do."

" _Seriously_?"

Andy shrugged one shoulder.

How did a woman like Andy _exist_? Nile'd never met anyone she so badly wanted to punch and kiss simultaneously. She stepped forward, ignoring the echo of her footsteps on the concrete and the way the low light made Andy's face look like it was carved from stone.

"See, that's not going to work for me. You can tell me I don't get it all you like, but I'm not seeing what else there is to _get_ right now. You trust me enough to kiss me, but not enough to let me take a hit for you? Or was that just now meant to be some kind of stress relief?"

She hadn't meant those last few words to come out as bitter as they did. It wasn't like she didn't know Andy'd been a lot of people over her long life; Nile had considered, a few times, what it must be like to be one of those of those casual, unknowing flings—a brush with eternity you'd never even realize you had. There was a certain sort of appeal to it.

But Andy was Andy, and Nile wasn't some unassuming stranger off the street, and if that was all Andy was looking for she was going to have to get that somewhere else. 

"God." Andy actually winced. "God, Nile. You seriously think... well, shit." She sighed. "You really want me to fucking say it?"

"Considering I don't know what _it_ is, yes!"

"I'm _dying_." The word came out a hiss, a growl; Nile took a step back, just on pure instinct, from the venom in Andy's tone. "Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but... years from now. Decades, maybe. Soon. And you're..." She waved a hand at Nile. "You don't need that."

She had to be kidding, was Nile's first thought. But—no, of course she wasn't. This wasn't Andy's style of joke, and anyway Nile had never seen Andy look _less_ like she might be messing with her. Andy's normal composure, that calm and collected look she wore into even the most dangerous of battles—like she'd seen it all before and wasn't especially impressed—seemed almost frayed around the edges.

"You can't be serious. Years? Decades? I'm _twenty-seven_ , Andy, all of that feels more than long enough to me. And you're..." She mimicked Andy's hand wave, and did a good enough job of it to make a quick grin flash across Andy's face. "You're you. I don't want centuries or millennia or whatever you think I should be looking for. I don't think that way. I want to live today.Now. Not worry about how I'm going to feel when three thousand and whenever rolls around."

"Nile," Andy said quietly. Just her name, nothing else. And she was still staring at her.

Nile really wished they could've been anywhere else to have this conversation. Of course Andy would decide a dark, abandoned tunnel, lit only by Nile's wavering flashlight, was the perfect atmosphere to have a heart-to-heart. But here she'd picked, and Nile wasn't about to run away from it. Nile stepped forward, bringing herself back into Andy's space. Close enough to reach out and touch. Close enough to... she swallowed.

"Look," she continued, "if you don't want this, any of this, then tell me now and I won't ask again." She'd be sore about it, sure, to get so close to Andy—to be kissed by her, even—and then have it all ripped away, but she was an adult. She'd been disappointed before. She knew how to live with it. "But if you do want this, and you're trying to push me away because you think you know what I want, or what I _should_ want, better than I do? Fuck that."

"You really are something." Andy was grinning at her now, the same fierce smile she wore into firefights. It always made Nile's heart jump into her throat to see it. "Whatever picks us for this, it did a good job finding you. You know that?"

And that wasn't a no, it was about as far as Nile could imagine from a no, so she reached out and wrapped her hands around Andy's shoulders and kissed her again.

Andy's mouth tasted like iron. Like blood. Nile never wanted to stop kissing her.

This time Andy broke away sooner, but the look she gave Nile when she did was anything but startled or regretful. 

"All right," she said, "put the sap on hold. We've still got work to do here."

Nile smiled at her, feeling every bit as triumphant as if she'd just run a marathon and won a Nobel all at once. She could still feel the touch of Andy's lips on hers. 

"What, like I was the one who started this?" She laughed. "Whose fault do you think this is?"

"No respect for your elders," Andy mock-sighed, picking up her labrys.

"You're right about that. Who's going to keep all of you humble otherwise?"

Not that anyone _could_ keep them humble, Nile thought; not Joe, not Nicky, and _certainly_ not Andy, who with her labrys in her hands looked once more like a goddess of battle, lit by the halo of a cheap flashlight's glow. Athena reborn.

Andy's hand brushed Nile's as they headed once more down the tunnel together, softly but deliberately, and it felt like a promise.

 _Later_ , it told her. _Later, but soon_.


End file.
